Nintendo’s new MOBA Pokémon Unite has taken gaming with sudden and unexpected force. Coming off of a blazing hot release Pokémon Unite has surged to even higher heights as a lightning-fast get-in-get-out MOBA that everyone seems to be playing. Too bad there is a giant Snorlax in the room! The game is riddled with microtransactions and pay-to-win boosts. Simply said, Pokémon Unite is pay to win!
But, let’s look at why Pokémon Unite is pay to win!
Pokémon Unite is free-to-play which is not strange because so are the titans of the genre: League of Legends and Dota 2. However, where the titans succeed in avoiding pay-to-win microtransactions, Pokemon Unite utterly fails. The problem? It is all because of Held Items.
Think of Held Items as your Pokémon’s pregame loadout. In Pokemon Unite, you can hold up to three Held Items at a time, and they can be leveled up to have their effect increased.
Hold up, I bet you know where this is already going, and your fears are indeed correct!
The Held Items have a wide variety of different effects like Leftovers, which heals your Pokémon over time, or Rocky Helmet, which returns damage back to an attacker. It gets worse, Held Items have 30 levels and at max level, the effectiveness is doubled. With three maxed-out Held Items, you will have a noticeable advantage over non maxed out players. The problem? These items are upgraded via a currency you can purchase with real money. Swipe away, you know you want to!
Want to win without using your bank account, then check out how to play the Pokémon, Absol or what out the deadly Greninja?
How is Pokémon Unite Pay to Win?
your micro skill is no match for their micro transactions in #PokemonUnite pic.twitter.com/LOGMDmmMAK
— beastcoast (@beastcoast) July 24, 2021
Maxed-out Held Items give a large boost to your Pokemon during a match and against new players, you will not only crush them with your experience but with your raw stat gain. Therefore, Held Items are legit pay-to-win in Pokemon Unite because they can be upgraded with cash. After doing some rough math, it would cost about $40 to level up a Held Item to max level and this would take 2587 Item Enhancers to do it. I bet you can guess where you get Item Enhancers from? The answer, the cash shop! Like seriously, I can't believe they called them 'enhancers' they should have just called them Poke-roids instead and be done with it. A missed opportunity in my humble opinion.
Outside of the microtransactions, the game is still fun to play casually and I have enjoyed the several matches I have played so far.
For more Pokémon content, make sure you stick around on EarlyGame and our Gaming section.